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Stiles can’t quash a feeling of anticipation as he arrives at the pack meeting. It had been Liam who called it, which makes sense with Scott out of the picture: Liam served as his second in command all through the war. Scott is on a date with Annika; at Stiles’s suggestion, he’s turned his phone off. Stiles honestly hadn’t expected pack business to come up quite so soon, but hey, this is Beacon Hills.
Stiles is the last to arrive: Liam, Malia, Mason, Corey, and even Peter are already seated around the room. “Thanks for coming,” Liam says when Stiles has seated himself. “We’ve got kind of a problem.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Scott?” Corey asks tentatively.
“I tried to call,” Liam says. “But… without his wolf, I really don’t think he can help, anyway.”
“What’s the problem?” Stiles prompts.
Liam takes a long breath. “The Sadler pack have some concerns about the terms we negotiated to end the war. They’re a small pack, so they weren’t consulted during the negotiations, but…”
“Not so small that we can afford to blow them off,” Stiles finishes. He leaves unspoken that the McCall pack is tiny if one doesn’t consider all their alliances. Even the Sadler pack is larger.
“Yeah,” Liam nods. “I offered to hear out their concerns, and they did agree to a meeting, but… Look, they made some pretty pointed comments about how young and inexperienced I am. I didn’t want to play the ‘True Alpha’ card, given Scott’s… condition, so I just smiled and nodded and told them we’d be in touch with a meeting time, but I think we’re in deep trouble if we can’t bring some kind of, I don’t know, weight or clout or something to this meeting.”
Everyone is quiet and uncertain for a minute, trading looks back and forth. Stiles keeps quiet, even though the solution is obvious.
When the silence is getting a hair desperate, Peter speaks up. “Well,” he says. “You do have access to the oldest surviving member of one of the five oldest packs in North America.” Peter spreads his hands. “I know I’m not your favorite person, but my pedigree is very good. And I’m quite familiar with the Sadler pack; they’ll think twice with me at your shoulder.”
Liam considered Peter for a long minute before slowly nodding. “That could work.”
Stiles swallows a smile. Liam would have balked if Peter had suggested he run the meeting. Offering himself as a resource sidesteps that reaction while still putting Peter in a position to direct the encounter.
One step at a time.